Slight Crackling Noise on Tracks

So i have had soundcloud for a few years now on my phone. Up until a few weeks ago, it was working fine. Now, the tracks have slight noises, like if you tap a microphone. It gets worse as you play more songs. It's not my headphones because when an AD showed up, it was playing fine. Ive tried to restart my phone (an android)and delete the app. How can you fix this? I really want to listen to my music on soundcloud again.

18 replies

I just noticed this too. Every single track cracks and pops despite uploads of pristine tracks. Even reverted to original WAV files instead of MP3. Still happens. Damaging to my business! I am referring buyers to my audiobook samples on SoundCloud, and now realize SoundCloud cracking makes it seem the audiobooks were not professionally produced. Bugger! I am paying for this "service".

The team has put some fixes recently that may help with your problem. May I ask you to download the latest application version and try again?

@Abdiel LeRoy - thanks for reporting the error. It would be useful for us to know if the issue happens only on Android or on other platforms as well(i.e web). It would also be super helpful for us if you could point us to some of your tracks so we can check if we can reproduce the problem.

Apologies for the inconvenience and thanks for your time!

Milos Pesic
Playback Engineer at SoundCloud Ltd.

Help other community members find useful content by clicking the like button and selecting the best answer to your question.

Yes I will download the latest application and see, but even if that works, there's no guarantee listeners will listen on the latest application.

I am listening on a Dell PC via Firefox, but again, SoundCloud needs to work across all devices, as my other audio applications do, so that I can send and embed links with confidence and not have to worry about what device listeners and potential buyers are using.

I have played several tracks again today, and the jumps and bumps are occurring on all of them. Examples include...

I have the Samsung Galaxy S9.
This problem occurred maybe 4 months ago for me.
I have tried 3 different earphones/headphones and the problem persists only when using Soundcloud.
It doesn't make a difference what song is played.
I have deleted and re-installed the app with no improvement.
The crackling noise comes and go's as it pleases, but when it starts it tends to get worse with time.

I have the Samsung Galaxy S8+.
The problem started yesterday as soon as I upgraded to Android 9.0.
Same crackling and popping sound as if something is not plugged into a jack right (the headphones work fine, tested in a computer. The phone's jack also works fine, tested my other headphones).
Soundcloud is definitely the issues here as Youtube, Spotify, and virtually anything else is working fine.
Can we please get at least an acknowledgement from an engineer that they are aware of this problem specifically with Android mobile phone and the Soundcloud app????

This is becoming kind of ridiculous. Years ago I lost an entire playlist with a days worth of music because somehow it got over wrote by another playlist I had. Couldn't fix that problem. I'm getting constant crackle/static popping to the point of being unbearable. Doesn't matter if its through my phone speaker, wired or wireless headphones, Bluetooth speaker, or linked in my car. Why I do I pay $10 a mo/ for consistent problems? UGHHHH why is this such a love hate relationship

So this problem has just started for me too, Samsung S9, I think it started after the Android update, I played around with my power saving mode settings today and found that by reducing the power savings the crackling frequency to be greatly reduced.... But the problem still persists, although I haven't tried turning power saving mode off completely yet, but it seems to be a software issue between soundcloud /Android.... The problem also persists through the phones speaker. I've also noticed that the crackling only really starts when the phone is locked /screen off.

Same problem here. My file sounds fine when I play it on my laptop, but when I play it on my Samsung Note 8 it has pops and clicks. What's going on? I'm betting most people are listening on their phones, so this is bad.

@JR Dahman@Andrew Beales@Mark Allen@bRYCEKRISPIE@Haakon Hestness, @nemetsk, @ahmedelbosaty
Just wanted to share the update on the progress. We shipped experimental fix to our beta users (fix is available starting from the version 2019.04.24-beta). It would be great if you could try joining our beta group - to test it before we ship it to the whole user base.
To join our beta community: https://community.soundcloud.com/android-230073/information-about-the-android-beta-7426196

Thank you for your time and looking forward to hearing your feedback!

Best Regards,
Milos Pesic
Playback Engineer at SoundCloud

Help other community members find useful content by clicking the like button and selecting the best answer to your question.

Cookie policy

Cookie settings

We use 3 different kinds of cookies. You can choose which cookies you want to accept. We need basic cookies to make this site work, therefore these are the minimum you can select. Learn more about our cookies.